Climate change video games?

Getting kids engaged and interested in green issues like climate change might take more creativity than a book or a classroom lecture. A company called Strange Loop Games used crowdfunding to create an online video game that teaches young people about environmental changes.

The game is called, “ECO”, and its focus is on sustainability to teach kids how to address global warming. In the game, players must collaborate to build a civilization in a world where everything they do affects the environment. All resources come from a simulated ecosystem, with thousands of plants and animals simulating 24/7. The players must work together through the player-run government and economy to build the technology to stop a meteor on a collision course with the planet, without polluting the world and killing it off in the process before that even happens.

The collaborative simulation game is geared towards middle school age children. Players work together to build a sustainable civilization and then have to protect the ecosystem. The environmental game even allows them to propose policies and laws that must be backed by supporting data in an effort to protect their virtual world.

While other educational video games exist, this one tackles a very specific issue and gives players a chance to learn about real world approaches while still flexing their imaginations.